


Trapped

by itsallAvengers



Series: Listen up, Kid [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, BAMF Peter Parker, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Crushed Under 19 Tonnes Of Rubble Does Things To Kids, Hurt Tony Stark, Panic Attack And Crippling Claustrophobia Things, Panic Attacks, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Feels, Protective Tony Stark, bad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 03:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11614524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: Peter Parker can fight aliens and monsters, no problem.It's just when it comes to fighting the things inside his head that things start to get difficult.





	Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> I've written this entire series in 2 days I feel Mighty

Peter gasped as the air was forcibly knocked from his lungs by an overly large fist, hitting him in the sternum and sending him flying across the street.

 

He tumbled, hitting concrete and rolling a few times before running out of momentum. Getting straight back up to his feet, he looked over apprehensively at his attackers from over the road. “That’s not how we greet people on Earth!” He called out grumpily.

There were at least twenty of them; all probably nearly double Peter’s size, and sporting muscles similar to those of Greek Gods. They were clearly alien- that much was obvious from the massive portal hanging over them all- but seemed…defeatable. He’d already stuck four of them to the wall.

But more kept coming from the hole in the sky, and for every one of them Peter took out, another just took it’s place.

 

“Tony?” He called out a little breathlessly through the comm.

“Coming as fast as I can, Spidey, just hold tight and try keep out of tr-”

Peter lost connection for a brief second as one of the aliens smashed their staff against the ground and sent huge chunks or rubble flying in Peter’s direction. He yelled, flipping backward and latching on to a nearby wall a second before the space he’d just inhabited was ripped apart by fragments of gravel and concrete.

“-Kid! Spidey! _Peter,_  come the fuck in, are you-”

“I’m fine,” Peter assured, running along the wall and trying to spot an opening. “They have…staff thingies, that seem to be releasing some sort of powerful sonic wave- it’s shattering concrete, so it’s gotta be intense. I could use one of them,” Peter muttered absently, aiming a web at the next creature he saw and then yanking harshly, knocking their aim off-balance before they could fire their weapon at a young man taking cover behind a car.

“Just stick to holding perimeter and getting out civilians, Spidey,” Tony ordered, and Peter heard the brief mutter of FRIDAY saying “if we go any faster, boss, we risk damaging the flight stabilisers.”

“I’m holding it, it’s fine, Tony, there’s no point damaging your suit-”

 _“Focus on the battle_ , kid,” Tony ordered loudly, and Peter huffed in frustration, but leaped back down to the ground, somersaulting over a deadly whatever-beam and grabbing the man he’d seen earlier by the collar. “Time to go, Mr Sir,” he said cheerily, before pulling him up over his shoulder and beginning to sprint over to a nearby alley. 

Once they rounded the corner, Peter dropped him. “Run,” was all he said, and the man obeyed; turning tail and scrambling through the thin alley toward safety.

Peter threw a web over to the building on the opposing side and then yanked taught, just in time for two of the weird rock-alien things to tumble over the thin line. Wasting no time on words this time, he simply stuck them to the floor and then leaped away before he was assaulted by more gunfire. 

He heard Tony swearing through the comm. “I’m ten minutes out, kid, but I called backup, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

Peter frowned. “Who’d you call?”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll know when you see them. For now, stay  _on_ the comm and stay  _out_  of the trouble, you understand?”

Peter grimaced, nodding his head before realising Tony couldn’t see that, and so said “yep,” sharply, ducking under another huge chunk of rubble.

 

God, these things were big.

 

A few of them began clattering off down the abandoned segment of Park Avenue, and Peter cursed, swinging off his web and hauling himself over to them, landing a few yards ahead. “Hey, fellas, has anyone ever told you violence doesn’t solve everyth-”

The creatures all roared collectively, loud enough that Peter winced in pain. Obviously they weren’t in the mood for talking. If they even could.

Peter glanced over his shoulder, looking at the group of people that were huddled, terrified, in the cafe a few buildings down from them. The aliens were looking too. 

That wasn’t a good sign.

“SitRep, Peter,” Tony ground out down the line, hearing Peter’s muttered curse.

Peter didn’t have time to reply; at that moment three of the ten aliens lifted their staffs, getting into a formation and then looking forward, before banging down with force.

Peter felt the world crumble underneath him, lifted off the ground as concrete shattered underfoot and flew around him, sharp edges slicing across his body, barely kept from cutting through the material of his suit entirely.

His first thought was:  _cafe._

That was the target. And it was a target that was about to be directly hit in less than three seconds, unless Peter did something.

Righting himself as he flew through the air, he laid eyes on the large piece of debris directly ahead; hurtling through the street and heading toward the window of the building. If it hit, everyone in there would be crushed. Instantly.

His arm flew out and he bit back a cry of pain as it was met with razor-fine rubble, but he didn’t relent. Letting his web fly, he flew through the air as if in slow motion, praying and praying and praying that it would reach its mark in time-

There was a familiar tug of tension as the webbing connected, but Peter had no time for relief. Using everything he had in him, he wrenched it toward him.

The sudden yank as the block of concrete was pulled to a complete standstill was powerful. Too powerful. 

 

He felt his arm wrench out of its socket, and this time he wasn’t strong enough to hold back the scream of agony.

 

But he couldn’t stop. The momentum had begun, now, and all Peter could do was twist it, roll it, manoeuvre it until it was arcing back around again, a perfect semi-circle that led right back to those aliens.   
They could only watch as suddenly 10 tonnes of rock and concrete was thrown in their faces.

 

Peter was still flying through the air, in between dust and sand and rubble, and his arm felt like it was on fire. He could hear, in the back of his mind, Tony. He was yelling something through the comm, but it didn’t register. All he could think of was the fast-impending wall that his body was about to fall into.

And, as predicted, second later it did.

 

This time, Peter didn’t cry out. Unconsciousness was immediate.

 

* * *

 

A few seconds later, when his vision faded back in, Tony was still screaming down the line.

 

Wincing, he mumbled something. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the screaming stopped, replaced with something like a choked-off groan, so Peter considered it a win.

 _“-Peter_ , do you understand me, you get away from there, right now, this is too much for you, backup is imminent and so am I, so you need to _get the fuck away_ before you actually get-”

“No,” Peter hissed, rolling on to his hand and knees. He could do this. “I can do this.”

“NO  _YOU CAN’T,_  YOU ALMOST FUCKING  _DIED,_  I AM TELLING YOU TO-”

“Karen, mute,” Peter whispered, palming a hand over his eye as he sat up.

The last thing he heard was an infuriated  _“PETER FUCKING PARKER IF YOU **DARE-”**  _before the line cut, and silence soothed his banging head once more.

He stopped, taking a deep breath before standing up.

 

And then choked on yet another scream as something smacked into his dislocated shoulder and sent him hurtling. Again.

 

It was pain, pain, pain- but he was Spiderman. He could deal with that.

Staggering back to his feet, he threw out another web with his good arm. The alien dodged, just by an inch, but it was enough. 

Peter growled, throwing himself to the side and ignoring the horrible spike of pain at the movement. He lifted his arm to shoot another web, but then paused as he heard a feral roar behind him. Had it not been for his enhanced instincts, he would never have dodged the fatal swing across the back of his head in time.

Lucky for him, all he felt was the wind pass over his head, rather than the uncomfortable feeling decapitation would undoubtedly have brought.

Rolling forward, he sprung back up, trying to figure out which one to face. They were both advancing, heavy metal (was it even metal? Maybe they were just gloved? Who knew??) fists swinging ominously, and Peter didn’t even have both arms in use at this point, if the one on his right got in first, then he wouldn’t have an arm to fight them off-

 

There was a revving noise, and Peter shot to the side on instinct, thinking  _deathbeam, rubble, horrible magical instrument of doom-_

 

There was the sound of crunching metal and horribly forceful collisions, and then the monster screamed out in agony. Peter felt the reverberations through his feet as it toppled.

 _“Duck, Spiderman!”_  

Again, instinct and reflex alone made him follow the order. He didn’t know who was speaking, but they sounded like they knew what they were doing, so he dropped to his haunches and raised a hand protectively over his head.

There was a blinding flash of light- identical to the ones that had been fired at Peter minutes previously- and then another alien screamed.

The one on Peter’s left dropped, too.

 

There was a heavy silence, before Peter’s head shot up, wide-eyed as he stared at the person who’d just taken out two the crazy aliens in less than two seconds.

 

 

Steve Rogers–  _Captain America_ – stared right back.

 

 

“What in the name of fuck?” Peter blurted, as the man shook his head and jogged forward a few steps, until he reached Peter’s side. “What the fuck are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, in the depths of Africa?”

“I was in town,” Rogers muttered, before a hand lifted gingerly toward Peter’s arm. “I need to reset this. It’s gonna hurt. You ready?”

Peter looked warily down at his arm, before jutting out his chin and nodding. “Yeah.”

Rogers grinned a little. “Brave. I like you. Okay, on three. One-”

Peter felt another white hot burst of agony rip through his arm, and he let a choked off cry fall from his mouth as his joint was forcibly shoved back into his socket.

Rogers was running a thumb soothingly across Peter’s shoulder as he attempted to compose himself. “Knew you… weren’t gonna do it on three. No one ever does,” Peter muttered, panting a little. The pain had died down as fast as it had come, and although it was still damn sensitive, Peter knew he could work it. 

He was spiderman. He could do it.

Looking up again, he frowned as he saw the crushed-up remains of a motorcycle sit on top of the first alien. “Did you…did you run that thing over?”

Rogers looked a little defensive. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Peter stopped, shrugging in agreement. Everything felt a little surreal. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Rogers looked a little  vacant for a moment, before getting back to his feet and pulling Peter along with him. “I got a call. I was needed. So I came.”

Peter’s mouth opened in surprise.  _“Tony called you?_  Seriously? He said he’d rather cut off his own tongue than-” he stopped when he realised Rogers just seemed to get a little droopier with every word, feeling a little like he’d just kicked a puppy.

“What can I say, kid- you must mean more to him than his pride, because he said all I had to do was keep  _you_  safe. No idea how he knew I was even in New York in the first place-” Rogers chuckled a little as he hefted the stolen alien gun over his shoulder, “but I guess that’s just Tony. Now- about you,” he said, turning to Peter and raising an eyebrow. “You need to get out of here. My team have this. You’re inured.”

“No,” Peter said roughly, pulling out of Rogers’ grip and then making his way back toward the main street fight, where he noticed a few extra people had joined the fray, “someone’s gotta stop the portal, and keep the civilians safe, and fight the aliens. You and your team can’t do it alone and you know it.”

Rogers stopped. Pursed his lips, and then looked over to the horrible thick-skinned aliens, currently tearing apart half of Park Avenue. “I…right. You stay in. But you stick with me the entire time, you understand? I’m here to look out for you until Tony can get here and yell at you himself, and so that’s what I’m gonna do. We clear?”

Peter grinned, giving his right shoulder a tentative roll. “Crystal,” was all he said, before shooting out a web and hauling himself back into the main fight.

Rogers would catch up in a few seconds. For now, Peter had to go fight some aliens and save New York.

 

Flying through the air, he webbed up another two of the creatures who looked like they were giving some of Rogers’ folks hassle, saluting them with a grin on his masked face before attaching himself to a wall and taking stock of the situation.

There were about fifteen creatures, all being desperately herded by the Rogue Avengers, although it was clear they were struggling. They simply didn’t have the sheer strength to go toe-to-toe with creatures like this.

He was about to launch into the middle of the fray and get his hands dirty, when he noticed another alien as it fell through the portal. It somehow managed to go unnoticed by everyone else; all of them too caught up in fighting the other ones- and the so when it dropped, there was no-one there to apprehend it.

 

Peter noticed, with a growing sense of horror, that there was something glowing ominously in its hand.

 

Wasting no time, Peter threw himself downward, swinging off a lamppost and feeling the air push against his face as he arced downward, knowing his trajectory would take him-

“Yoink!” He called, snatching whatever it was directly out of the alien’s hands and then flying onward, landing a good 60 yards away when he eventually came back down again.

Rogers turned to him, briefly, nodding in satisfaction when he saw Peter, unharmed at the side of the street.

He was at an angle, though, and it meant he missed the object clutched in Peter’s hand, which had just begun beeping.

 

Beeping objects were never a good sign.

 

His mind worked faster than it had all day as he glanced down at the weird beepy cube. 

Okay. Right. Chances were, this thing was a bomb.

And by the rapid rate in which the beeps were quickening, he guessed he had less than fifteen seconds before it detonated.

 

He was almost certainly going to die.

 

Question was- how could he do it so that he was the only one? How could he save everyone else- all the Rogue Avengers, all the civilians still hiding in their cafe’s and retail stores and apartments?

He didn’t even know what the blast radius was. He might not be able to do a damn thing.

 

For a brief, rather amusing moment, he considered trying to swallow it. But he realised he’d never be able to get that down his throat- it was probably three times bigger than the width of his gullet in the first place.

So no swallowing.

 

Turning his head frantically, he looked for…something. Anything.

There was the portal. He could…he could see if he could throw it through the portal- but there was a big chance he wouldn’t get it in. The portal was facing the ground- the aliens had been jumping in and falling down to the floor below. Peter would never be able to get the angle right. And he was too far away to run any closer to it.

Okay. Two options down, one second passed- what else did he have?

 

 

Across the road. An old hotel- all grand stone and gargoyled features- currently waiting to be demolished.

Big. Heavy. Could probably hold a decent-sized explosion.

 

 

Peter sprinted forward.

 

 

The space between beeps was slowly becoming shorter. Peter guessed at about ten seconds until it went off.

He’d be well into the middle of the building by then.

 

Leaping up the stairs all at once, he burst through the doors like they weren’t there at all and then stopped, quickly deciding which route would take him further in.

 

Eight seconds.

 

The corridor veering just slightly to the left, that was probably the one. Peter shot forward, clutching tightly to the ticking bomb and adamantly refusing to think about the fact he was going to die in 5 seconds.

 

He kept running. The building really was huge- he wasn’t even sure he was in the middle yet, and he’d been sprinting for almost-

 

Something grabbed his hand.

 

He yelled, turning around, spare hand raised and ready to fight, but it paused a fraction away from the Ironman faceplate as the metal grip pulled the bomb from his fingers and hurled. A proper,  _fearsome_  hurl that sent the bomb careening forward, further and further and further.

Tony didn’t say a word. As soon as he’d thrown it, his hand grabbed around Peter’s waist and once more, Peter was yanked forward at a truly immense speed.

They were flying through the building, so close, maybe they’d even-

 

Sound ripped through the air like scissors through paper, and he knew they were too late. They hadn’t made it.

 

Peter shut his eyes, feeling as Tony whirled them around so his reinforced back was facing the explosion. His whole body curled around Peter in the air, and Peter felt them drop as Tony cut the thrusters, so as not to smash them straight into a wall.

Fire ripped through the walls, and Peter curled further into the embrace on instinct, shielding his face from the flames by tucking it up against a metal shoulder.

Peter wondered if his suit would hold out, or the fire would rip through it.

 

They hit the floor hard, and both of them rolled across the stone, Tony’s hands never releasing their grip against the back of Peter’s head and waist. Over and over and over; it didn’t feel as if it were ever going to end. like they’d never lose momentum. Peter’s arm was aching, and so was the rest of his body. He was pretty sure they’d rolled just out of the blast radius, but the heat was still searing, and Peter steadfastly kept his eyes shut.

He felt scared. Terrified, even.

 

After what felt like an age, they stopped moving.

 

Their entire world was still shaking apart, and Peter could hear the explosion and the fire and the pieces of falling debris as they clattered to the floor, close, too close to his head.

With a heave, Tony grabbed hold of his shoulder and rolled, one last time, so he rested over Peter, rather than the other way around.

Immediately, everything dimmed a little. Bits of rubble bounced off Tony’s armour, clinking rhythmically against the metal, but honestly, Peter was just grateful the boiling chunks of rock were no longer burning through his own suit.

 

“-Peter, Peter, buddy, listen to me- you gotta get up, we gotta move, that beam is coming down, you gotta move-”

 

Huh. Was he gonna get crushed again?

…Fuck. 

_Was he going to get crushed again?_

“Oh no,” Peter whispered, chest constricting almost painfully in memory of the Other Occasion, of what was almost a carbon copy of the scene he was looking at right now, rubble and dust and falling pieces of debris as supporting beams caved in on him-

“MOVE!” Someone was screaming, and Peter felt the hand that yanked his weakened shoulder, pulling him across the floor, sliding him out, over jagged rubble and burning metal.

 

He watched as Tony scrambled to his feet, arms raised as the suit suddenly found itself bearing the weight of the entire building on top of it.

 

Peter curled up again as once more, various things were dislodged from the ceiling. 

This felt too similar. This felt like a nightmare. The space was too small. They were trapped. Peter couldn’t bear being trapped, not after-

“-You absolute IDIOT!” He heard the words to his left, “I told you to GET OUT! TO LEAVE! What did you do? You grabbed a god damn shitting bomb and went on a suicide run! How  _dare_  you turn off the comms, Parker- do you have  _any fucking idea_  how serious this shit is? You do not  _ever_  turn off comms- I didn’t know if you were dead or alive! Do you genuinely have a fucking deathwish? Is that what this is? Because we’re stood under what has to be a fifty tonnes of rubble and I can’t move the suit an inch without it all coming down on our asses, so-”

 

Oh God. Too real. Too real. Too small. He hated small spaces. And it was dark. Inescapable. Tony was here too- fuck, this was it, this was just a nightmare, one of many, he dreamed this all the time, if he could just wake up, it would be okay-

 

“I cannot  _believe_  you’d… wait…Peter?”

 

Just a nightmare. A nightmare. And he had to wake up before Tony died. Because they always died. Whether the dreams held Ned, or Aunt May or Mj or Tony or all of them, they always died without him, leaving him alive, crushed under the weight of the building he couldn’t lift-

 

“Peter! Buddy, you need to-”

 

Oh God. How did you wake up from a nightmare? Did you pinch yourself? Scream? Dying usually worked, didn’t it-

 

“Peter, hey, hey, look at me. Look up, come on, come on, follow my finger. You can do that for me, right? Can you look at me, Spiderman? Please?”

 

No. He couldn’t. I he looked, if he saw the rubble or the crushing darkness or Ton’s dead body, then it would mean he was too late, he’d be too late, the building would trap him forever and ever.

 

Something clicked, twice, in front of his nose, and it was surprise more than anything that made him open his eyes and look. 

“There we go,” Tony said, clicking them again, lifting them out of sight, and Peter followed, because he wanted to see the life in those fingers, wanted to hear the faint pulse through his enhanced ears. That never showed up in his nightmares, that was always the one thing that was absent.

“Hey, Spiderman,” Tony said quietly, when Peter eventually worked up to looking him in the eyes. He wasn’t in the suit; horribly exposed to all the elements, crouched down with one hand clicking occasionally near his face and the other hovering nervously around Peter’s shoulders. “You back in the room?”

Peter gasped. “You… where’s your suit,  _what’s holding up the building?”_  He yelled, head turning rapidly in panic, arms immediately coming up to brace for impact-

“The suit! The suit, Peter, I stepped out of it- the suit’s still holding it up, okay, it’s fine, it’s fine. I got you. You’re good,” Tony explained hurriedly, hand moving to compensate for Peter’s jerk, but still refusing to land on his shoulder.

There was silence, and Peter heard his own ragged breathing fill the room. Fuck- what if he breathed in too much oxygen- what if they ran out, w _hat if what if what if-_

“Steve’s on his way, Spiderman,” Tony said, fingers still clicking at his side, still grounding Peter to that staccato rhythm, the one thing that seemed not to fit in with the themes of his nightmares, “he saw us both go in, and they’ll be finding a way to dig us out, right now.”

“What if he doesn’t?” Peter shook, voice barely above a whisper, and he realised absently that he’d curled up in a ball on the ground, looking at Tony as he crouched above.

“He will,” Tony assured him, hand ghosting over Peter’s shoulder, “I know he will. He’s Steve. It’s what he does. Insufferable bastard,” he added on at the end, pulling a little face as he glanced over to the thoroughly concaved area around them. It seemed that the beam was the only thing keeping this tiny little pocket empty of rubble.

 

Peter took a deep breath. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was real. This was what was happening, and Peter had to get through it.

 

“Can we… can we meet them half-way, do you think?” Peter asked quietly, just desperate to leave, to get out, to see daylight again.

 

Tony winced, and shook his head. “We have no idea what stones need to stay where in order to keep this whole thing standing. They’ll have equipment for this. We’ll be in here an hour, max.”

 

Maximum. One hour. One whole hour, stuck here.

 

“You know, one hour is really just six lots of ten minutes,” Tony began, still clicking as he leaned back so he was sat on his ass, looking up at the ceiling and shrugging, “which is also, like, 12 lots of five minutes. That’s roughly one song and a bit, 12 times over. Not that long, really,” he mused.

Peter nodded, arms curled tightly around his knees. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Tony sighed across from him. “Can I touch? Or will you detach my hand from my wrist if I put it on your shoulder?”

Wordlessly, Peter just nodded, and Tony immediately let the hand drop, until it was running softly along Peter’s shoulder. “You….God, I cannot believe I’m saying this, but you shouldn’t be sorry. You just saved a tonne of people. Not that I’m still not pissed that you disobeyed orders,  _again,_  may I add,” Tony said, flicking his shoulder lightly, but his voice didn’t sound harsh- only exasperated, mixed in with a little bit of fondness, “but… you did what a great superhero would do. You put everyone else before you. Objectively, I can’t fault that.”

Peter swallowed, and uncurled, just a fraction. Tony was smiling at him, ash smeared across his face, cuts bleeding down his face, animated and exasperated and alive, not dead, not dead, not dead.

“-of course, from literally   _any other point of view ever_ , it was a horrible, terrible decision, and believe me, I am going to  _murder_  you when we get out of here. But not yet. For now, let us bask in the success of your endeavour,” Tony declared, throwing a hand up around him and gesturing to the lightly smouldering room.

 

Peter raised an eyebrow. And then, incredibly, he found himself laughing. “Yeah. I think I did okay.”

On the other side of the room, a chandelier suddenly fell to the floor, crashing loudly and sending glittering diamonds skittering across the tiles.

Tony sighed. “God, is this what it feels like to be Pepper? I am exhausted. You have exhausted me, boy, I swear to god you’re gonna give me an aneurysm from worry.”

Peter opened his mouth, but at that moment, there was suddenly a shifting in the rocks. Peter jerked and Tony jumped to his feet, hand that had been resting on his shoulder suddenly turning tight as he dragged him back. 

 

Fuck. Peter had been starting to think they might make it out, as well. This sucked.

 

“Peter, follow me, right now,” Tony ordered quietly, and Peter did, unable to do anything else. It was either he followed, or he stopped being able to function.

Tony guided him backward, shifting around so that rather than dragging Peter backward, he was pushing against Peter’s chest.

He kept going, blind with terror, until he found himself stumbling over something,  _into_  something-

Tony grabbed his forearms, lifting them up and pushing them against something soft, and then there was a soft little “close up, FRIDAY,”

And suddenly he was surrounded by metal.

 

Peter stared at Tony through the eyes of the suit, stomach dropping further than his shoes, further than the ground- he felt like someone had just poured a pint of lead into his blood- he’d taken Tony’s suit, he’d taken Tony’s defence-

 

 _“No,_ ” Peter said quietly, barely even audible. He attempted to move, but the joints were locked in place. “No, Tony, NO- get me out, _get me out-”_

“Just a precaution, kiddo,” Tony said softly, a hand patting the chestplate as Peter squirmed around helplessly inside, begging to FRIDAY, to God, to anyone who would listen to let him go again, to put Tony in instead, this was his suit,  _Tony_  was the vulnerable one here, he wasn’t even fucking enhanced like Peter, he was just a human underneath all the metal- the metal that Peter had just stolen from him.

The rubble shifted again, and he watched Tony brace through his tear-filled eyes, all the while begging uselessly for Tony to take it back, take it back,  _take it back-_

 

Suddenly, a large chunk of rock shifted, and…

 

Light.

 

That was a crack of light.

 

“Tony?” Someone called, baritone voice a little bit desperate as it ran through the destroyed building.

Tony blinked, and then sighed in relief. “Oh thank fuck- hey Steve,” he said, in between huffs of laughter, “see, Spidey, I told you he was an insufferable bastard who just couldn’t let a thing lie.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say about a person coming to save your ass,” Steve replied blandly as Peter watched fingers curl around another hunk of rock and pull, widening the crack further.

“Okay, okay, I apologise. Hey, FRIDAY, let Spider out, it’s okay,” Tony said, waving over to the suit.

 

And just like that, Peter was out again.

 

He looked at Tony, standing next to him like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t been about to put Peter in their only chance of survival and leave himself out, despite the fact there was a better chance of both of them surviving if it had been the _fucking other way around-_

“Spidey, the gap’s probably big enough t-  _whoah_ , whoah, oh…uh, okay then,” Tony said, as Peter threw himself into Tony’s arms, grabbing the man’s shoulders and hugging as tight as he could without bruising.

Jesus, fucking…. _fuck._

Tony made a few more noises, before his hands came up and clutched right back, tight and grounding and warm.

When Peter released, his hands were damp, and he frowned.

 

“Hey, Spidey?” Tony asked, grabbing the back of his neck and looking into his eyes anxiously, “you okay now, right? You’re good?”

Peter thought about it. He wouldn’t really say he was _good_ \- he’d never had a panic attack that bad before. But it seemed the worst had passed. 

He nodded his head.

 

Tony smiled. “Oh. Good.” He nodded back, and then made a face, “hey, so now that’s sorted, I’m just gonna-”

 

 

And then Tony blacked out in Peter’s arms.

 

* * *

 

Turned out a piece of rubble had managed to lodge itself under Tony’s right shoulderplate and impaled him.

 

 

“Oh look, it’s the village idiot,” Tony mumbled, when he woke up on the hospital bed a few hours later.

 

Peter jerked, turning to look at Tony. from his seat. “Me?  _I’m_ the idiot? You were the one who didn’t tell me you were impaled! I could have webbed you up! Stopped the blood! What the hell, Tony?” Peter hissed, leaning forward and pointing an accusatory finger over to Tony’s face.

“Ugh, you sound like Steve,” Tony said sleepily, eyes unfocused. He was pretty knocked up from the meds, and it seemed he wasn’t going to last long before drifting off again.

“He’s waiting outside, by the way,” Peter added grumpily, leaning back in the chair with folded arms.

“Who?”

“Steve.”

“…Oh.”

Peter huffed again, and Tony pulled another exasperated face. “Okay, listen, _I’m_ supposed to be mad at  _you_. You were the one who fucked up here, not me. I was just being the responsible adult-”

“You put me in your suit, Tony,” he whispered.

“Yeah, because You’re Peter Parker and you’re  _damn_  nearest thing I got to family, kid, so I wasn’t exactly gonna watch you get crushed to death, okay? Capiche? Do we understand one another?” Tony snapped, leaning forward in his bed a little as he glared up at Peter, before he waved him off, wincing a little when it jarred his shoulder, “doesn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t a cave-in, only Steve Rogers, riding in like a knight in shiny fucking armour. Did you know he grew a beard? What the fuck is that about? That’s unacceptable- I’m not going to be able to focus on anything for  _weeks_  after this, fuck him, fuck everything about him, to be honest.”

Peter listened to the ramble, unable to stop the grin from hearing drugged-up Tony talk. “Yeah, okay then. I’m still pissed at you, though.”

“Well so am I” 

“Great.”

“Good.”

“Nice to know.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

There was silence for a while, and then he heard Tony sigh. “Glad you’re not dead, kid.”

His eyes were already closing, but Peter said it anyway. “Yeah. Glad you’re not dead, too. And… you’re the closest thing I got to dad, so…you’re family too, I guess.”

Tony huffed out a tired laugh. “How beautifully put, Mr Parker,” he said sarcastically, before his eyes closed completely and he fell back into sleep.

Peter exhaled, shaking his head a little before getting to his feet and walking out of the room. He didn’t have to go far to find what he was looking for.

 

“He’s okay,” Peter said, and Steve looked up at him from his chair in the waiting room for a moment before visibly deflating in relief. “Yeah- just spoke to him now. High as anything, but okay.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah- kay. Good.” He replied, smiling slightly as he looked away. “I expected as much, to be honest. Takes more than that to put Tony down.”

Peter huffed. He was still sort of pissed with Rogers, because Tony was and Peter was unequivocally on Tony’s side- but he knew two idiots who were avoiding something important when he saw it. “You should just talk to him. And not when the world is in danger or you’re pulling him out of a collapsed building, either.”

Steve exhaled, before shaking his head. “I don’t think… I’m not sure if either of us are there yet, son.”

Peter sighed. And they said teenagers were angsty? “Say that however much you want, but he trusted you to come. And you waited for him, here. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

Steve looked caught out for a moment, before his whole body did a funny little jerk and he stood up. “I’m gonna…go. I’ll see you around, Spiderman,” he said quietly, like he wasn’t going to come right back tomorrow morning and check up again.

 

Peter watched him go, shaking his head. People made everything so complicated- honestly, Peter didn’t really get that- he was a simple guy, at the heart of it, he did what he thought was right, and was too mature for all the petty fights-

In his pocket, his phone began to ring. Absently, Peter pulled it out and checked caller ID.

 

His face went a little green.

 

“Uh oh,” he whispered to himself, as Aunt May’s face beamed back at him.

 

Okay.

 

So he was really going to die this time.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is @itsallavengers - come talk (or scream) with me!


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